Cherenkov radiation, light produced by charged particles when they pass through an optically transparent medium at speeds greater than the speed of light in that medium. Devices sensitive to this particular form of radiation, called Cherenkov detectors, have been used extensively to detect the presence of charged subatomic particles moving at high velocities.

Cherenkov radiation emitted by the core of the Reed Research Reactor located at Reed College in …

United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Cherenkov radiation, when it is intense, appears as a weak bluish white glow in the pools of water shielding some nuclear reactors. The Cherenkov radiation in cases such as this is caused by electrons from the reactor traveling at speeds greater than the speed of light in water, which is 75 percent of the speed of light in a vacuum. The energetic charged particle traveling through the medium displaces electrons in some of the atoms along its path. The electromagnetic radiation that is emitted by the displaced atomic electrons combines to form a strong electromagnetic wave analogous to the bow wave caused by a power boat traveling faster than the speed of water waves or to the shock wave (sonic boom) produced by an airplane traveling faster than the speed of sound in air. The phenomenon was discovered by the Soviet physicist Pavel A. Cherenkov in 1934 and was explained by Ilya M. Frank and Igor Y. Tamm in 1937.

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When the speed of a charged particle in a transparent medium (air, water, plastics) is so high that it is greater than the group velocity of light in that medium, then a part of the energy is emitted as Cherenkov radiation, first observed in 1934 by Pavel A. Cherenkov, a Soviet physicist. Such radiation rarely accounts for more than a few percent of the total energy loss. Even so, it is...

Cherenkov light is a consequence of the motion of a charged particle with a speed that is greater than the speed of light in the same medium. No particle can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum (c), but in materials with an index of refraction represented by n, the particle velocity v will be greater than the velocity of light if v > c/n. For...

Soviet physicist who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physics with Pavel A. Cherenkov and Ilya M. Frank for his efforts in explaining Cherenkov radiation. Tamm was one of the theoretical physicists who contributed to the construction of the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb.